powerplate - ever heard of it?

My gym have just added a new gadjethttp://www.powerplate.comit seems to be a vibrating platform (oo-err).- which is meant to improve the effectiveness of stretching and strength training.-I think the principle is sort of similar to swiss balls in that your core is always working.- And also uses the idea that if you make a muscle work hard to contract, it will fatigue and release much further when it's allowed to relax (physio treatment seems to sometimes use the same principle)

I work at John Lewis and we sell them. I never understand how if a machine is doing the work for you, how can you lose weight(one of the claims of the power plate). The ones in JL are situated at the top of the escalator and I bet the person selling them that if he went up and down on the escalators and I went up and down the stairs, I would lose more weight than him.

Yep...My gym got one a few weeks ago.Its ok for stretching, very good infact.

But hubby and I think a side effect for us was It made our arms weak for a while.I was struggling to do my normal weights.As soon as I stopped using it, strength returned.It was any position that tensed the arms.

The marketing bumf seems to say that it's the effort your body has to make to keep stable on an unstable thing that will burn the cals.--- Interesting that it may weaken arms.-Definitely don't want to risk screwing up my legs this close to FLM.- But I'd like to finally have "normal" length hamstrings.-

Going to have to try it.- but only in very small amounts at first I guess.

I used to work in a David Lloyd club - they were the first chain of gyms to install them. Last year I was training for a marathon but had hamstrings problems - after using them every day for a week (they recommend only 3 times a week really, I think) I stretched out my hamstring and was able to run again.

I did a half marathon on Sunday, very stiff on Monday , jumped on one Monday afternoon - sat on it to massage hamstrings, and was able to run that evening without any soreness at all.

Great machines for stretching but that's about it really, in my opinion. Like you'e all saying, you've just got to do the work, not let a machine do it for you.

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